


opera interlude

by starvels (dinosaur)



Series: continuing drabblefest [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Character Study, F/F, Gen, Other, Outer Space, Spaceships, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-27 22:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16228355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaur/pseuds/starvels
Summary: They spend their days tumbling through space, hoping they're aiming in the right direction, ignoring the way the ship whispers, waving its shadows at them.





	opera interlude

**Author's Note:**

> for prompt 1/31: airplane ghosts. went for a space opera style, the is like a drop-in to a much larger story intentionally !

Carol hates old runners.

“If I’d wanted to tumble through space with my guts twisting everywhere and no central air, I’d just fly badly outside the goddamn ship,” she mumbles into her helmet.

“You’re grounded right now,” Tony says from inside the console.

“You’re not my mom,” Carol bites back.

“Thank Thor for that,” Tony mutters and rips something out to throw across the cockpit. It hits the far bulkhead and a shimmer of something stretches across the hull, just at the corner of Carol’s vision.

Ghosts in the machines.

Shit.

They’re still at least 20 days out from Earth and she isn't gonna leave Tony but Carol’s still sporting splotchy orange dots from their latest unfriendly run in with attempted pirates, which hasn’t really improved her patience any.

“You, patient?” Tony raises their eyebrows all the way into their still-smoking hair, on the second day of Carol’s countdown to earth.

“Fuck off,” Carol suggests, with a smile.

“You’re still orange,” Tony snaps back.

They continue tumbling through space in the vaguest direction of earth. Something’s wrong with the engine, they both know.

Tony mumbles in their sleep, all Ss and Ts and Vs and Carol stays pressed to their side and doesn’t think of Chewie’s round floof, doesn’t think of her bed or the long midnight hair that should splay across it, should be lit with starlight, should be silk under her lips. Carol presses her peach bruised fingers to her mouth and bites down on her own heart.

16 days to go. Protein cubes and veggie purees.

Space is mostly empty except for the bits that are shockingly, vividly occupied. It’s relatively easy to avoid the lit up hubs by turning-tumbling to the dark. She grips the steering with aching hands.

Tony turns their face towards big nebulae they pass, like a cat yearning towards the sun. Carol’s more used to this, the interminable emptiness, to becoming mushroom like, making do and crawling out red and bold. Tony’s never grown in the dark, stayed there. They’re limelight, through and through and it only trods on Carol’s patience a bit to have to leave a portlight on when they sleep.

The ship still creaks, weeps. Follows them into their dreams.

A bulkhead panel curls over them sometimes, petal-soft metal movements shifting closer, closer.

They move spots.

The bulkhead moves back.

14 days to go.

Carol lays beside Tony and looks at the splashes of color on her wrists, fading, fading, but still there and rubs her fingers too hard together.

It’s harder not to be afraid of the dark, like this.

She’s never without light, except how she is and how this whole mission has sucked it out of her at turns, vacuuming over the spaces between her powers and her brain, rucking up the ridges of her certainty into fault line mountains she can't climb over easily. She can't leave Tony, she can't fly, she can't go an hour without seeing the ship move of its own accord.

Tony both ignores and notices the ship.

Their eyes follow the currents through unplugged wires, mouth turning up at the sighs of the engine righting itself under their hands – but blissfully looks past the shapes in the portholes, puts hands over ears over the clicks in the hallways.

Tony’s always been able to be selectively focused.

Carol struggles more, big picture, too much brain, too much brawn.

Too much history, here in this old clunker. Past following it like hellhounds nipping its heels. The pilot in Carol knows better than to board a machine like this, act like they can use it instead of them.

But what choice do they have.

Down to 13 days. Down to three spots high on her cheek. Still one warbird down.

They’re both stretched thin, losing weight if not muscle mass. Tensed to not jump at the soundtrack of history in the ship. When the massive battleship eases into the cracked porthole sky – neither of them are even surprised.

“Must be a Tuesday,” Tony says, head staying flopped on their crossed arms.

“I want a burger,” Carol says, and sighs before shucking on her helmet.

Tony cracks a laugh as Carol smiles a grimace at them.          

The battleship reels them in.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! 
> 
> tumblr tag for this series [[here]](https://starvels.tumblr.com/tagged/drabblefest). post for this fic [[here]](https://starvels.tumblr.com/post/178839103421/)


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